This Portuguese bread has a lovely crisp crust and soft interior. It is delicious served with grilled sardines, or caldo verde, and the rest of the loaf made beautiful toast the following day.
The recipe for broa I followed comes from the King Arthur Flour website.
Broa
(makes 1 loaf)
- 1 cup finely ground cornmeal
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 1/2 cup warm milk
- 2 1/2 cups white bread flour
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 Tb honey, or sugar
- 1 Tb olive oil
- In a mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal and instant yeast. Stir in the warm water and warm milk.
- Add the flour, salt, honey (or sugar) and olive oil. Knead to form a smooth, slightly sticky dough.
- Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise for about one and half hours, or until doubled in size.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, knead gently a couple of times, then form into a ball. Place on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Cover and leave to rise for 45 minutes, or until very puffy.
- Preheat the oven to 450°F (225°C). Slash the top of the bread with four 1/4″-deep slices, forming a square.
- Spray lightly with water, then bake for ten minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 400°F (200°C), and bake for another fifteen minutes, or until golden brown.
Ten More Bites 
This looks very yummy indeed, thanks for sharing.
Yum, this looks perfectly crispy and delicious! thank you for the motivation to bake more of my own breads!
Baking your own bread is more work than buying it, but so much nicer as well.
I do hope this is the elusive recipe I have been looking for. A bakery on the edge of Vancouver ‘s Chinatown used to produce Portuguese bread of my dreams that aficionados came from all over town for
Wouldn’t that be an amazing coincidence! It is certainly very moreish…
I’ve never tried Broa before, but this looks like a beautiful recipe to follow!
It’s nice and simple, and makes a lovely loaf of bread.
I love the King Arthur website! This looks fabulous.